Running Ruminations

Again, I blame the travel whirlwind for throwing off my writing game, but I finally got around to doing some math on my mileage for 2012, and the magic number?

1818.98

…miles for 2012.

As much as I can tell, that’s my highest-ever mileage for a single year since I started doing this crazy business in 2007, so that’s kinda cool. (I don’t know what I did in 2007… probably not much, since I had just started; 1500 in 2008; about 1300 and change in 2009; 1543.23 in 2010; not much in 2011 because of the pregnancy).

What makes me even happier (maybe even prouder) is that 2012 was my first full-year of training after having A in May 2011.

I still can’t really truly account for what seemed to *click* physiologically for me in 2012, but hey, I’m not asking many questions. Maybe I should… In the interim, I’ll take it and run (ha ha, HORRIBLE pun) with it 🙂

So, here we are, 2013. What’s up for me this year? Let’s revisit what I said in 2012 and build accordingly.

1. Drop time in 5k and half-marathon: ideally 21 flat 5k and 1:35 half — check and check; I posted a 20:30 at the 5k on Mother’s Day and a 1:35 at the Polar Dash, a 1:33 at F^3, and a 1:35 at the Alpine Races half in Lake Zurich

2. Go sub-3:35 in the marathon — check, went 3:34 at Champaign

3. Rock the NYC marathon on my 29th birthday; it’ll be a 26.2 mile birthday party! — nope, Hurricane Sandy had other plans

4. Do a new race this year: a trail run or an ultra.  Or both… — hmm.. check! Completed Ragnar Madison-Chicago 200 mile relay as part of a team of a bunch of strangers… It was a blast! Totally exhausting but totally fun! (I have a lot of posts about this; here’s where they begin).

5. Be a better cross-trainer (read: begin cross-training, and do it regularly) and start CrossFit to become a more balanced athlete and runner — check! Started CrossFit at Windy City CrossFit in May 2010 and went 1-3x/week through the rest of the year. I think it greatly contributed to my running and overall health and athleticism, and I’m excited to return to it, now that I’m not travelling for six weeks at a time. It’s an ass-kicker to be sure but totally worth it.

6. Seep my running passion into other areas of my life in an effort to make me a better mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, family member, and human being — this is always a work in progress.

For 2013 then, I want to:

a) stay healthy and injury-free

b) go sub-3:30 in the full (my major goal) and

c) 1:30 in the half. This is very much an ancillary goal. If this happens on my way to realizing point b, awesome. If not, no problem. (that sounds wishy-washy… suffice it to say my focus is on points a and b).

I’d like to drop more time in my 10k, since that was the one of the only distances I couldn’t race in 2012, but it’s not *as* important to me as the marathon.

I guess, now that I’m actually sitting down and writing this out, I’m not really sure what I want to do for 2013. I never imagined hearing myself say that.

I feel cautiously optimistic that I’m not yet fully realizing my potential–wow, that sounds simultaneously ridiculously pompous and also very condescending (like what a math teacher would tell you, ha)–but I’m not really sure. I guess I need to think about this some more.

Some stuff I know I want to do–see the aforementioned points a, b, and c–as well as goals that don’t really carry with them a specific metric; for example, I know I need to continue going to WCCF to get in some much needed strength and agility work, but I’m not really sure if I want to commit to a certain number of times/week… or just let it adapt as my training schedule adapts. I don’t know.

Maybe my 2013 goal is to not have a goal, aside from the big two (points a and b).  I guess I need to think about this some more, after all, and revisit this in, say… March 🙂

At any rate, here’s what’s on the 2013 calendar, effective as of today:

1. Houston Marathon – 1/13/13

2. ChiTown Big Game 10k- 2/1/13 (my first 10k since I was pregnant, whoa)

3. Shamrock Shuffle 8k – 4/7/13

4. Eugene Marathon – 4/28/13 (always a special day; 4/28 was A’s due date)

5. NYC Marathon – 11/13

I’ll likely add more races (halfs, some 5ks, whatever else seems to work) to the mix, but I’m committed to five as of now.

I’m cautiously optimistic that 2013 will be a good year for my running. As I said in my Houston race report, I’m super fortunate to be able to glean a lot of running wisdom from my training buddies and the fine folks at RYBQ, twitter, and dailymile, so I can only hope that it’ll all combine to form the perfect storm of running wonderfulness… one day at a time.